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His igno- rance of Pali and Sinhalese has prevented his doing anything like adequate justice to the subject ; but he hopes to avail him- self in future editions of the criticisms the present one may call forth. H. SHG: A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 030300 — 1. Q. Of what religion 1 are you? A. The Buddhist. 1 The word “religion” is most inappropriate to apply to Buddhism, which is not a religion, but a moral philosophy, as I have shown in Qués- tion 128. But by common usage it has been applied to all groups of people who profess a special moral doctrine, and is so employed by statisticians. The Sinhalese Buddhists have never yet had any concep- tion of what Europeans imply in the etymological construction of the Latin root of this term.* In their creed there is no such thing as a “ bind- [* The author here assumes the usual etymology of “religion,” — from the Latin religare, “to bind.” This, however, is much disputed. Some derive the word from re/igere, “to gather,” “to collect,” in the sense of the gathering of a body of religious doctrine or the formulation of reli- gious belief. These etymologies should both probably give way to that which allies “religion” to veligens, “ pious,” “fearing the Gods,” from / 12 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 2. Q. What is a Buddhist ? A. One who professes to be a follower of our Lord Buddha, and accepts his doctrine. 3. Q. Was Buddha a God? A. No. 4. Q. Was hea man? ing” in the Christian sense, —a submission to or merging of self in a divine being. Agama is their vernacular word to express their relation _ to Buddhism and Buddha. It is pure Sanskrit, and means “approach,” or “coming;” and as Buddha is “ enlightenment,” the compound word by which they indicate Buddhism — Buddhagama —would be properly rendered as an “approach” or “ coming ” to “ enlightenment,” or possibly as a following of the doctrine of Sakya Muni. The missionaries, finding agama ready to their hand, adopted it as the equivalent for “ religion ;”. and “Christianity ” is written by them Christianiagama, whereas it should be Christianibandhana, for bandhana is the etymological equiva- lent for “religion.” With this explanation I continue, for the conven- ience of the ordinary reader, to employ, under protest, the familiar word when speaking of Buddhistic philosophy. relegere or religere, in that one of its senses which means “to go over in mind,” “to con, ponder, meditate,” etc. ‘“ Religion,” in this sense of the word, is substantially a system of moral philosophy rather than any form of obligation; and the term is therefore not entirely inappropriate to a body of doctrine which rests so largely as Buddhism does upon that “enlightenment” or “wisdom” which comes of seclusion, meditation, and the communion of the soul with itself. — C.] A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 13 A. In form a man, but internally! not like other men ; that is to say, in moral and mental qualities he excelled all other men of his own or subsequent? times. 5. Q. Was Buddha his name? A. No; Buddha is the name of a condition or state of mind. 6. Q. What is its meaning ? A, Enlightened ; as one is who has the perfect wisdom. [} “Internally ;” ¢.¢. as to his “state of mind,” as one might say, or, more figuratively, “in his heart.” In Oriental philosophies the “ mind,” or “thinking principle,” is frequently called the. “internal organ ” (manas), upon the modifications of which the form or state of the soul is consid- ered to depend. “Inner consciousness” is a similar term in common use among us; and in general, with mystics, occultists, and other stu- dents or masters of psychic science, “internal ” or “interior,” conditions are considered “superior,” and are contrasted with “external” or “infe- rior’ states of mind, which depend upon the evidence of the bodily senses, and are therefore subject to merely intellectual qualifications. — C.] [? Non-Buddhists, of course, may take exception to this statement, each in favor of the founder of his own system of religious belief or moral philosophy. But Christians can hardly do so with propriety, since they have identified Jesus with God, thus removing him from the human cate- gory as beyond all comparison with other men. Yet it seems but right here to recognize the |exalted and illustrious master of perfect wisdom, the gentle Nazarene, the very Christ and later brother-adept of Gautama, whose similar life and nearly identical teachings have so long illumined the Occident with the light of divine truth, in spite of all that many of his nominal adherents have been able to effect to the contrary. — C.] 14 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM, 7. Q. What was Buddha's real name then ? A. Siddartha was his royal name, and Gautama, or Gotama, his family name. He was Prince of Kapilavastu. 8. QO. Who were his father and mother ? A. King Suddhddana and Queen Maya. 9. Q. What people did this King reign over ? A. The Sakyas, an Aryan tribe. 10. QO. Where was Kapilavastu ? A. In India, a hundred miles northeast of the city of Benares, and about forty miles from the Himalaya Mountains. 11. Q. On what river ? A. The Rohini; now called the Kohana. 12. Q. When was Prince Siddértha born. A. Six hundred and twenty-three! years before the Christian era. . 13- Q. Did the Prince have luxuries and splendors like other princes ? A. He did; his father, the King, built him, for the three In- dian seasons, three magnificent palaces, of nine, five, and three stories respectively, and handsomely decorated. Around each {1 The exact date is disputed (like that of the beginning of the Chris- tian era itself), and few authors venture upon unqualified statements in this particular. A usual assignation of the lifetime of Gautama is ‘“‘about” *620-1543 B. c. —C.] A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 15 palace were gardens of the most beautiful and fragrant flowers, with fountains spouting water, the trees full of singing-birds, and peacocks strutting over the ground. 14. Q. Was he living alone? A. No; in his sixteenth year he was married to the Prin- cess YasOdhara, daughter of the King Suprabuddha. Many beautiful maidens, skilled in dancing and music, were also in ‘continual attendance to amuse him. 15. Q. How, amid all this luxury, could a prince become all-wise ? A. He had such a natural wisdom that when he was but a child*he seemed to understand all arts and sciences almost without study. He had the best teachers ; but they could teach him nothing that he did not seem immediately to comprehend. (16. Q. Did he become Buddha in his splendid palaces ? A. No; he left all, and went alone into the jungle. t7. Q. Why did he do this ? A. To discover the cause of our sufferings and the way to escape from them. 18. Q. Was it selfishness that made him do this ? A. No; it was boundless love for all beings that made him sacrifice himself for their good. [+ For an instance of the same precocity attributed to Jesus, cf. me ii. 46 e¢ ‘Kapp C.] 16 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 19. QO. What did he sacrifice? A. His beautiful palaces, his riches, his luxuries, his pleasures, his soft beds, his fine dresses, his rich food, his kingdom; he even left his beloved wife and his only son. QO. What was this son's name ? A. The Prince Rahula. Q. Did any other man ever sacrifice so much for our sake ? A. Not one;? this is why Buddhists so love him, and why good Buddhists try to be like him. Q. How old was he when he went to the jungle ? A. He was in his twenty-ninth year. 23. Q. What finally determined him to leave all that men usually love so much, and go to the jungle ? A. A Deva? appeared to him when driving out in his chariot, under four impressive forms on four different occasions. [1 See note 2, p. 13. Aside from the qualification there implied, de- pending upon the deification of Jesus, any Christian might demur that the sacrifice of one’s life to the highest altruistic ideals is a greater one than the surrender of all life’s possible possessions to the same end. — C.] 2 See Question 155. [Needless to cite numberless instances of similar _ apparitions scattered throughout the Jewish, Christian, and other scrip- tures which treat of spiritual affairs. Among the best known or most gen- erally accredited among Occidental peoples are those of ‘‘ Jehovah ” in the burning bush, as recorded in writings popularly ascribed to Moses, and of ~ ~~ ee a ee) ns A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 17 24. QO. What were these different forms ? A. Those of avery old man broken down by age, of a sick man, of a decaying corpse, and of a dignified hermit. “Christ” to Saul of Tarsus. Corresponding phenomena, involving the apparition of spiritual intelligences in more or less visible and tangible form, constantly occurring at the present day, are known to students of psychics as “ veridical phantoms,” and to American Spiritualists as “form materializations.” I say “corresponding phenomena ;” but it must not be inferred that the manifesting intelligences are usually, if ever, of as high an order of spiritual beings as those which have become historical in connection with the foundings of religions and philosophies. It cannot be presumed that a very exalted spirit ever did return to earth’s plane and become visible to the physical senses of man, except as a messenger of the Most High or in response to the most powerful invocation of some mighty master and adept in psychics, the purity of whose life and the power of whose will make him a peer of the Gods. Apparitions may be roughly divided into two main classes, — 1. Those which manifest themselves to a single person, who perceives them by his psychic senses, as in religious ecstasy, trance, clairvoyance, clairaudience, somnambulism, or other hyp- notic conditions.